You were expecting Rudy Gay? This is a solid move w the five mil we had left. If he sucks we can cut him after this year. low risk move.
Despite popular belief, I was not expecting any of the big names being bandied around (Gay, Iggy, Granger etc) but what I was expecting was for us to be smart about who we get and how much we spend.
We had $6 million under the cap which can get you a reasonably good player either via trade or via free agency. You also take into account Garcia's expiring and you have some currency to work with. Not great but it gives us some flexibility.
What we have done is halved that salary cap room and added yet another average player to an already average lot at SF. He does not make us better. In fact, I am not convinced he is ahead any of our sorry lot at SF. He struggles guarding a lot of SFs because of his lack of leg speed and footwork. He is a classic tweener.
I honestly would have rather seen up re-sign T-Will for that $2.8 million and call it a day and just see if anything else pops up where we can use that cap space and expiring deal to get solid player via trade down the track.
As it is now, we have limited ourselves for the season and most likely this move mean that we are not getting Williams back. When its all said and done, I don't think we got better at all. If anything, if Williams leaves, we are LESS talented (not counting T-Rob) because Williams is a more talented player than Johnson and I rather spend $3 million on an obvious talent, than on a classic tweener without real position in the NBA.
That is just me. Teams that are run well do not make these types of deals. Teams run by deluded, penny pinching owners precisely make these type of moves. I still go back to a clear fact, if James Johnson is as good as people here are making him out to be, he would not have been replaced by Ladry Fields and Toronto would not have been looking to trade him considering they are in just as desperate need for a SF as we are.
Further to that, we did not trade for Wright because apparently he was not enough of an upgrade for us but James Johnson is. While neither is ideal, Wright is a better player than Johnson.
All I want is for us to be smart about spending money and getting a clear upgrade at the position. This is yet another ill advised move where we spend the money and NOT get a clear upgrade at the position.
To season in a row we have blown away some $20 million of salary cap on Salmons, Hayes, Outlaw and Johnson and neither of them is a starter and most of them are not key role players on a good team. On lottery teams they might start but on good teams they are not rotation players.
